


All You Need Is Tomorrow

by flyingfanatic



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Angst, Army AU, Edge of Tomorrow AU, Emily Blunt's arms were the best part of the movie tbh, F/F, Minor Character Death, Swearing, Therefore, Time Loop, Violence, affectionately known as the edge of waverly earp's arms, beyond canon-typical, so some of the humour is weird, soldiers being soldiers, that is reset by character death, therefore character death is not permanent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:07:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28881459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingfanatic/pseuds/flyingfanatic
Summary: The world has been plunged into war yet again.  A conflict beyond any that came before it.  This time the enemy is not other humans, but aliens, known as Revenants.  No one has any idea where they came from, or why.  All anyone knows is that they want to wipe humanity off the Earth.And they’re winning.On Nicole Haught’s first day of combat against the Revenants she finds herself thrown into a time loop that resets the day each time she dies.  The only way out of the loop is to win.  The only way to win is to defeat an undefeatable enemy.Nicole teams up with the war hero Waverly Earp, the Angel of Purgatory, and gradually, step by step, they seek a way out.Wayhaught Army AU inspired by Edge of Tomorrow
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 16
Kudos: 52





	1. Live, Die, Repeat

**Author's Note:**

> “Well, what would you be doing if you were a civilian? Staying up late, jacking off, playing Metroid - trying to get to that ninth level?”
> 
> You know what happens when you get there? Nothing. You just start all over again.”
> 
> //
> 
> Fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/00tDlJxx8jhb5I3v8Q8lZt?si=m-56QeBoRRasv0dKI2zOCQ
> 
> //
> 
>  _I just wanna stay afloat_  
>  _I'm all alone_  
>  _And I hope that someone’s gonna take me home_  
>  _Somewhere I can rest my soul_  
>  _I need to know you won't let go_  
>  [...]  
>  _I won't let go_  
>  _I'll be your lifeline tonight_
> 
> Cold Water – Theory of A Deadman

Nicole stares up at the slats of the bunk above her, trying to stop the dream from leaking away.

She’s stripped down to her t-shirt and pants, belt loosened but not unbuckled, and socks left on under bloused pants, just in case. They’ve been on two hours’ notice to move for the past week, six hours for the week before that, and the NCOs do regular checks to make sure they’re not slacking.

Nicole rubs her sleep-fuddled face with both hands.

In the dream, she’d been in combat. Not the staged, blanks and smokes combat of training. Actual live rounds zinging past her towards the impossibly fast advance of the Revenants. They moved strangely, just like in the videos they’d been shown, and those eyes, those terrible eyes...

There were explosions, and screams, and she’d seen the faces of people she knew, staring up at the sky without seeing, but the more she chases the dream, the more it fades, and she can’t remember who it was she saw, or what happened to them.

Nicole lifts the hands off her face and stares at them. She turns them over and over, then runs her right hand up her left. She’d lost that arm in the dream, but she can’t remember what it felt like.

A head pops below the edge of the top bunk, blond ponytail dangling behind it.

“What’s cooking, good looking?”

Nicole groans and covers her face again with the arm that is definitely still attached. “Shapiro, I was trying to sleep.”

“Well, you’re clearly not sleeping anymore.” Shapiro swings down off the bunk and lands in a practiced crouch. “Want to go find some trouble?”

“No, I want to read–“ Nicole glances over at the book tucked under her pillow. She was sure she’d almost finished it last night, but her bookmark is only halfway through.

“Read? You want to read, when we’re probably rolling out tomorrow? Fuck that. You’re coming with me.”

_Tomorrow?_ Nicole thinks bemusedly before Shapiro drags her off her bunk, protesting. _But today is D-Day– isn’t it?_

“Where are we going?” Nicole asks as she slips her boots on.

“Find some booze. It’s gonna be a shit party with nothing to drink.”

Shapiro flings Nicole’s jacket at her, and she thinks _what the hell._ Wasn’t as if it was that good of a book, anyway. She saw the ending coming a mile off.

“Three platoon!”

With a dramatic groan, Shapiro visibly deflates at the sound of Sergeant Nedley’s voice. Anyone in the barracks still comfortably racking out immediately jumps to their feet, porn magazines and playing cards scattering to the floor.

“Outside, twenty minutes, PT strip,” Sergeant Nedley barks. “Don’t keep the officer waiting.”

//

If they ever felt like wasting half an hour, getting Lieutenant Dolls going on the glorious history of the Black Badge Regiment was a sure way to do it. He was going to make sure their platoon was the best in Bravo Company, and Nicole has endured months of sore muscles and bone-aching weariness to achieve that vision.

She’s just not sure the day they’re going to attack–no, the day _before_ they’re going to attack–the front line of the Revenants is the best time for a long PT session.

Still, if the Colonel wants them to look raring to go in front of the British Special Forces, then who is she to argue. She’s not sure that straggling the platoon back onto the tarmac outside the terminal currently housing 3 Div, drenched in sweat from the pace Lieutenant Dolls set, creates the best impression, but at least it’s over.

Lieutenant Dolls trots easily up and down the column as it comes to an unsteady halt. He’s far from tired and gives off the air of having been for a nice gentle jog around the block, rather than a gruelling ten clicks around the airfield the Coalition’s claimed as its new base.

Nicole places her hands on her head and focuses on her breathing. Beside her, Shapiro spits onto the asphalt. Sometimes, Nicole wishes her fire team partner had a stronger grasp of social niceties.

“Push up position!” Lieutenant Dolls yells.

The two columns of the platoon split apart and drop to the ground facing their commander. Nicole can just about hear Shapiro’s muttered curses behind her. She’s not the only one grumbling. On her other side, Hunter is dripping sweat onto the pavement.

As Lieutenant Dolls sends them bobbing up and down in unison, they yell out the count. Nicole watches him, executing perfect push-ups in front of the platoon without the least sign of weariness. Not for the first time, she wonders if he’s getting some kind of experimental drug. The man _never tires_.

At the cry of fifty, he lets them up. Along with the rest of the platoon, Nicole stares at him, waiting for the next order. In her dream, they’d moved onto leg lifts next.

Instead, Lieutenant Dolls orders them into a series of stretches, and they breathe a collective sigh of relief. Stretches mean the PT session is over.

As she moves her body through the cool-down routine, Nicole sees why, sees what’s different from her dream. The British Special Forces have arrived, and with them, the Coalition’s most famous soldier.

The face Nicole has seen on every recruitment poster, every screen, every bus, and every newspaper in the past six months.

The Angel of Purgatory. The Full Metal Bitch.

Captain Waverly Earp.

//

In the end, Nicole decides not to join in the pre-deployment party. Shapiro curses her out for being no fun, but Nicole just can’t shake the feeling of oddness that’s been fluttering in her chest ever since she woke up from that dream.

She racks out with her book, hoping to lose herself in its imaginary world, but even that doesn’t feel right. It’s almost as if she’d read it before, but she can’t have. She only bought it last week.

//

The next morning, at oh-dark-stupid, Sergeant Nedley stomps around the barracks, flinging plastic-wrapped bundles at each bunk.

“Put them on, ladles and jelly-spoons! Trust me, you do not want to be cleaning your own shit out of your armour on D plus one.”

Sergeant Nedley stops in front of her bunk and hands Nicole her Depends diapers. He’d always had a soft spot for her; she’s not sure why. Maybe it’s because she’s the only member of his section not causing him constant paperwork.

“You alright there, Private Haught?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Good. Suit up, we’re not gonna wait around for you all day.”

“Yes, Sergeant!”

//

On the third attempt, Nicole gets her foot into the stiff boot of her fighting suit. Having to put on the bulk of the main frame first makes it difficult to bend over, and she jabs her feet around mostly by feel. Even then, no matter how much she wiggles her foot around, she can’t seem to relive the pinch around her heel.

At least she’s not the slowest in the section. Across from her, Lonnie is still struggling with the clasps that hold his breast plate closed, and next to him Hunter keeps trying to put his left foot in his right boot.

The only soldier fully suited up is Sergeant Nedley, striding up and down the row helping, checking, murmuring soft words where they’re needed, and barking people into line if they need that, too.

“You alright in there, carrot top?” Shapiro’s ready when Nicole is still snapping the last plates of her suit closed, and she lifts her arms to let Shapiro finish the job for her.

“That’s rich, coming from a blonde bimbo.”

Shapiro grins, just like Nicole knew she would. She’s nervous as all hell, so nervous she can’t even really feel it anymore, but the thin veneer of humour stops the orders that are being yelled around her from being drowned out by the rapid thumps of her heart.

“Shove this on, it’ll make you look prettier,” Shapiro shoots back, handing Nicole her helmet.

Nicole looks into the inside of the closed helmet, the little tubes and speakers somehow coming into sharper focus. She runs her thumb over the little piece of plastic that connects to her Camelback, and the tiny speaker that connects to her radio. It all seems so flimsy, now. Too easy to break.

“You’re supposed to put that _on_ your _head_ , Private Haught.”

Nicole jerks up to see Nedley, standing in front of her. He’s the only other person not wearing a helmet. The rest of the squad turns to look at her, familiar faces slightly distorted through the orange-tinted glass, mouths moving without making a sound. Their comms, their air filters, their entire world contained within those suits now, and she’s apart. The only way to join them is to put her helmet on, to encase herself completely.

She shoves the damn thing on her head and crackling chatter immediately bombards her ears.

_“Fuck, I forgot to spit out my gum.”_

_“That’s why you ain’t supposed to chew gum, you fucking idiot.”_

_“No swearing on the net.”_

_“Nice of you to join us, Haught!”_

_“Man, I’m sweating balls in this thing.”_

_“Does ‘balls’ count as swearing?”_

_“Not when we’re talking about yours, they’re too small.”_

She feels, but can’t see, the pressure of Nedley’s hands checking the seal of her helmet with the neck of the suit. It must be good, because he pushes her forward into the rest of the squad.

_“Shuttup and let’s go!”_

//

_“We’re going in on those?”_

The squat, amphibious trucks look more like their mess tins than something you’d actually go to war in. They’ve got flat, featureless roofs, and ramps at both ends. The one towards them is open. The one pointing out towards the enemy won’t open until they’re on the other side. Somehow this slim shell of metal is supposed to see them safely across the river through to the other side.

After that, their safety isn’t the main concern anymore.

_“Yep. Covered assault. Minimal air support. We don’t want them to know the attack’s coming.”_

Nicole remembered Nedley saying that. Had it been in her dream? _But they know we’re coming, anyway._

They troop in. With the bulk of their fighting suits, there’s only enough room for a single section inside. Nicole looks around but isn’t surprised when she sees there are no controls. Completely automated, there and back. Somehow, she already knew that, even though she hadn’t seen the trucks until today.

Sergeant Nedley gets on last, and the ramp closes behind him. This is it. No going back now.

//

As soon as the ramp hits dirt, the section bursts out, those in front pushed on by the ones behind. The truck is an easy target, and no one wants to stay in it a second longer than necessary.

Nicole and Shapiro pound out across the dirt, spreading a few feet apart, but staying level. They wobble along like ungainly ducklings, but the sight of her fire team partner is comforting: a single point of consistency in the surrounding chaos.

A ball of fire comes hurtling towards them, apparently out of nowhere, and it forces Nicole to scatter in the opposite direction from the rest of her section. Her focus is fixed on tracking the others, trying to figure out how to get back to them, when she gets knocked into the ground by an explosion behind her.

When Nicole finally picks herself up, she has to scrape her visor clean with one clumsy, gloved hand to let the light back in. Between the remaining smears of mud and the smoke of explosions, the word has turned to a strange haze of shapes, none of which look anything like Shapiro. Or the rest of her section.

Her comms have gone silent, which either means they’re broken, or she’s too far away to pick up the signal from the others.

Nicole spins, trying to find something -- _anything_ \-- that looks familiar. Did she just run past that crater? Was that the airplane wing she’d gone past earlier, or had it been part of a downed helicopter? Was that the outline of a truck, or the remains of a building demolished last week when the Coalition retreated across these fields?

She can’t even figure out which way the shield lies, and the panic begins to set in.

She’s surrounded by soldiers, all alone, and she doesn’t know which way to run.

Around her, everyone is heading in one direction and her numb brain sends her legs after them. Doing something has got to be better than standing still, waiting for the next missile or flying piece of shrapnel.

It’s the right move, made just in time.

A helicopter crashes where she just was, and the shockwaves send her head-first into the dirt again.

_Thank fuck they’re not fighting in a rock quarry, or her head would be jelly._

Whatever had been knocked loose in her helmet by her first faceplant seems to fall back into place with the second, and she begins to pick up disjointed words over the radio.

_“...metres... two... left... “_

_“...stop... team... down...”_

_“...MOVE, MOVE, **MOVE**...”_

Out of the smoke strides a soldier without a helmet, fighting suit painted red, with a thick blade clenched in one hand where everyone else has a gun.

A Revenant comes hurtling over the dunes, and Waverly Earp moves towards it, blade sliding to a two-handed grip and coming around in a practiced swing that sends the creature flying away across the beach. Even as her sword pulls free, she’s wheeling it around again, ready to meet the next enemy, expecting the attack from the rear, ready for it when it erupts from the smoke.

The heavy boots slide and stomp, bracing each new position as Waverly turns, moving more like oxfords on paneling than combats on dirt. The sword never stops moving, always twisting around, ready for the next move, its inertia carrying it around the anchor point that is Waverly.

Waverly grunts and yells with the effort of each blow but never tires, never lowers her weapon.

Nicole can’t help but stare.

She watches Waverly drive one Revenant into the ground using the sheer weight of the sword. She takes out another, limb by limb, darting around it like a mosquito the Revenant is desperate to swat, somehow leaping just out of range of each blow.

In a lull, Waverly straightens up and scans the world around her, taking in the battlefield with a critical eye, always searching for the next fight, the next danger.

She notices Nicole staring at her, and stares right back. For a moment, the noises fade away, and all Nicole can think about is the wild look in Waverly’s eyes and the almost painful beauty of her face. In a way she can’t explain, Nicole’s sure they’ve locked eyes before. There’s something there, she knows there is. A feeling that doesn’t have words.

She reaches out a hand, is about to call out, but then an explosion behind Waverly sends her flying, and knocks Nicole flat _again_.

When Nicole gets her breath back, she rolls over, but there’s nothing there besides smoke and fire. She doesn’t even really have time to let the image travel from her eyes to her brain before she feels a rough hand yanking her to her feet.

_“Let’s move, Private Haught!“_

Nicole stumbles along behind Nedley, falling in with what remains of their section. A quick count suggests they’ve lost at least two already, but Nicole can’t check faces and run at the same time. To her relief, Shapiro is out in front, yelling enemy sightings across the comms.

_“Covered ridge, thirty metres, ten o’clock!”_ Shapiro yells.

“ _Head for it_ ,” Nedley says, his tone far more even than the younger soldiers in his section. He talks into the radio, rather than shouting. “ _Charlie front and center, Bravo on the right, Echo on the left_.”

They form a loose crescent, ready for the Revenants to come. Nicole makes sure to shoulder in next to Shapiro, who grins widely at her. _“Decided to join in the fun, Haught?”_

_“Quit chattering and keep your eyes open,_ ” Nedley warns.

He’s right to caution them.

_“Fifty metres, twelve o’clock, Revenants. Fire!”_

The Revenants are coming, so close Nicole can see the strange symbols dancing over their heads, the glowing red holes where their eyes should be, the barbs that end their limbs where she expects to see hands. They move in that same jerking, almost stop-motion way she remembers from her dream.

There’s one, right in the centre, that’s different. Tinged blue, while all the others are black and red. For some reason, Nicole knows that’s important, but she can’t remember why. That Revenant is practically on top of her before Nicole can get her weapon pointed in the right direction, and as she sprays what she assumes is its face with bullets, a sharp limb pierces her chest.

Then, as the fall to the ground seems to stretch out into eternity, Nicole remembers.

She’s lived this day before.

//

**Reset Three**

Nicole wakes up back on her bunk, panting.

She shoots up and clutches at her chest, desperately hunting for the wound she’s sure just happened.

Shapiro reappears from the top bunk. “What’s cooking, good looking?”

Nicole doesn’t reply. She just keeps poking at her shoulder. _Where is it? Where’s the hole?_

‘Hey, Haught-stuff, you alright?” Shapiro swings down. “You don’t look so good. You better get something for that, we’re rolling out tomorrow.”

_Tomorrow!_

Nicole lunges for her book. Yes, there’s her bookmark, in the middle. She rifles desperately through the pages after it. She’s already read the whole thing, but she _can’t_ have.

“You sure you’re alright?”

This was the book she read the night before D-day, but it’s the day before the assault. Again.

She’d had that dream, about being killed, the day before D-day. Then she was killed, and now she’s here… but what if it wasn’t a dream?

“Hey! Haught! Hey!” Shapiro’s shaking her, but Nicole doesn’t really register it until she yells her first name in her face. “Nicole!”

“Yeah?”

“We best get you down to the medics, get you seen to.”

“Three platoon!” Sergeant Nedley strides into the room, dispelling any last doubts Nicole had about having lived this day before. “Outside, twenty minutes, PT strip. Don’t keep the officer waiting.”

“Sergeant! I think Haught needs to go to the medics.”

He strides over to peer critically at Nicole’s ashen face. “You sure look peaky. You want to go to the medics, Private Haught?”

Nicole nods, unsure of what else to do. She’s pretty sure no doctor is going to have an answer for this problem, beyond labelling her unfit for duty and sending her off for a psych eval.

“Not you, Private Shapiro. Haught’s still walking, she can take herself down. You get out on the square with everyone else.”

//

Medical is housed in a squat, single-level concrete building and, in typical army fashion, turns out to be one of the few buildings on the impromptu base where the doors can’t be opened by the push of a button. The door is heavy and closes so fast it catches Nicole on the back of her heels when she steps through it.

Nicole falls into line behind the other soldiers on sick parade. Coughs. Sprains. Concussions. Mostly coughs; the dreaded shack hack.

When Nicole’s called forward the man in the room is not only in an American uniform but has an officer’s bars on his rank flap. His name tag reads _Holliday_.

“Sir,” Nicole greets him stiffly.

“You can just call me Doc,” he assures her in a soft, drawling voice. “What seems to be the problem today?”

_I think I might be reliving the same day over and over. Or dreaming that I am. Or seeing the future. Am I crazy, Doc?_

No, she can’t say any of that.

“I dunno, Doc, I just felt kinda dizzy there for a moment. Like ringing in my ears? It was weird.”

The questions come slowly as he pokes at her, waving a light across each eye, depressing her tongue and peering critically down her throat. “Have you noticed any other symptoms? Have you been eating enough? Have you been drinking sufficient fluids?”

Nicole nods. “Yeah, yeah, I’m hydrated.”

He inserts a thermometer into her ear. “Have you been taking your nutrient supplements?”

“Yeah.”

The thermometer beeps, and he peers at it. “Mmph. Well, I cannot see anything wrong with you. In all likelihood you experienced dehydration, perhaps a mild heat cramp. Make sure you drink plenty of water and try to get as much sleep as possible.” Nicole gets up and heads towards the door, but then Doc stops her for one last piece of advice. “Oh, and Private? Do _not_ drink heavily tonight.”

//

Shapiro strides into the barracks with two jerry cans and a grin like a tiger. “Drinks are on me.”

_What the hell_ , Nicole thinks, and swipes a full mug out of Shapiro’s hand, causing her to whoop with joy. _Live every day as if it’s your last, right?_

But what do you do when your last day keeps repeating?

//

This morning when Nedley stops by her bunk, he holds onto her set of Depends and examines her critically. “I thought I sent you to the medics, Private Haught.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Nicole gets to her feet hoping like hell she looks tired, rather than the hangover she’s feeling.

“You still don’t look so good.”

“He said mild dehydration. I’ll be fine.”

“Mmm. Get some water in you, then come suit up.” He hands her the plastic-wrapped diapers. “You’ll definitely need these.”

//

“You alright in there, carrot top?” Shapiro grins while she helps Nicole finish buckling into her suit, but when she gets nothing but disengaged silence, she leans in and lowers her voice. “Fuck, man, you really drink that much last night?”

“I’m fine,” Nicole lies. She’s not sure how much of the headache is due to the booze, and how much is the wrenching helplessness, but most of her is just too stunned to string two thoughts together.

This can’t be happening. This isn’t possible.

“Okay, but if you wanna vomit, you better take your helmet off first, okay? Or you’ll have to swallow it, ‘cause you do _not_ want that shit in your breathing tubes.”

//

The ramp hits the dirt.

Nicole stumbles out, blindly following Shapiro.

She only remembers the ball of fire when she sees it coming for them and has to veer off away from her section.

An explosion knocks her down, again. Everything seems strangely familiar, like the way she’d recall visiting a house when she was a kid, but she only remembers that she’s seen it before when it actually happens.

Until then, she’s every bit as lost as she was last time.

Trying to stick as close to what she knows as possible, Nicole blindly strikes out in the same direction as every other suit soldier still on their feet. This time she must move faster, because when the helicopter comes down, she keeps her feet in the shockwave.

She should probably keep going. Give herself a whack on the back of the head to fix her comms and find her section.

Instead, she turns around and heads back to the downed helicopter, and Waverly.

This time, Nicole sees the blade dragging on the ground as Waverly emerges from the wreck. Where before she had seen only an avenging angel, now she sees the hints of humanity sneaking through the cracks in Waverly’s armour. She’s limping slightly, sporting a sprain from the impact of the crash, and there’s a thin trail of blood down her temple.

All of which does nothing but make the smooth way Waverly swings into battle even more stunning.

She’s bruised, she’s shaken, but she comes up ready to fight, no matter what. Waverly is alert, calm, the mistress of her fear, while Nicole flounders in her own confusion. Like a concussed duckling Nicole stands in the middle of the screams and the bullets, watching an impossible woman carve out a little piece of victory in the middle of a slaughter.

When the lull comes, and Waverly straightens up, Nicole remembers what happens next.

Nicole’s feet carry her forward without bothering to wait for her brain to catch up, sending her body slamming into Waverly’s mere seconds before the helicopter erupts.

By some stroke of luck, she’s knocked them both into a ditch, the earth protecting them from the worst of the blast.

Turtled on her back, Nicole can barely see Waverly getting to her feet, sword coming up to meet the Revenant charging towards them. Nicole’s winded, she can barely breathe, but she knows she has to get up, she has to get up right now; the Revenants are coming and she has to _help_.

Nicole can’t get up.

_Why can’t she get up?_

Her left leg isn’t working. She looks down and sees a piece of metal protruding from her thigh.

_Huh._

This must be shock, because she simply can’t register the wound she’s staring right at.

Then a Revenant appears over the edge of the ditch, half of its face on fire. Nicole forgets she’s in a fighting suit, forgets about the weapon strapped to her right arm, forgets about everything but the sharp hook of the leg stabbing down towards her, and throws herself to one side.

Fuck. Now she can feel her leg. Fuck fuck fuck.

She rolls, left, right, right, left, hoping more than planning that she’ll keep ending up where the Revenant isn’t.

She fails.

//

**Reset Four**

Nicole rolls off the bed, still caught in the need to get away from the Revenant’s strikes, somehow still believing that she can move in time to save herself.

Pain shoots up her knees when she hits the floor, and she barely gets her arms up in time to stop herself from bloodying her nose on the linoleum.

“Haught? You having a party down there without me? That’s lame.” Shapiro lands lightly in front of Nicole just as she’s picking herself up. “The fuck was that about?”

“Bad dream,” Nicole mutters.

Shapiro rapidly scans Nicole’s face, just as she had… _yesterday? Last time around? How is Nicole supposed to think about this in any kind of straight line?_

“You alright?”

“Good to go,” Nicole says, too quickly.

“Three platoon! Outside, twenty minutes, PT strip.”

//

Nicole wanders through her day -- through the run, through the briefing, through supper -- in a disconnected daze. Everything she does is just going through the motions while her brain whirs away in the back of her head

When Shapiro walks in with her bootleg jerrycans, Nicole falls on them gladly.

After she’s lost count of how many mug she’s drunk, she and Shapiro end up sitting on an old tire behind the hangar they call home, nursing the dregs of the can.  
  
“What if there is no day after tomorrow?”

Shapiro punches her. “Don’t start talking like that. Don’t you dare start talking like that. You’re gonna get through it. We’re gonna get through it, you and me. I’m gonna keep your ass safe if I have to haul it all the way back to Purgatory.”

“No, I mean... what would you do if you were stuck in one day, over and over, and nothing you did mattered, ‘cause nobody else remembered?”

“Oh, I can think of all sorts of things to get up to...” Shapiro chuckles, deep in the back of her throat, and winks at Nicole.  
  
“Not that! I think I’m stuck in a time loop.”

Shapiro grabs the drink out of her hand and sniffs it suspiciously. “You’ve had too much.”

“No, Eliza, I’m being serious...”

“Look, Haught, I like you, but if you’re gonna start talking crazy talk, I’ll drag your ass right to the medics, okay? I’m not going out there with a fire team partner who’s gone funky in the head.” Shapiro tilts her head, and gives Nicole a good look-over. “You _sure_ you’re alright, Haught?”

Nicole waves a hand dismissively. She should have known that’d be Shapiro’s reaction. Using her first name was icing on the cake. She doesn’t really know what she was thinking, telling her. It sounds crazy enough inside her own head: said out loud, it sounds insane. Cart-her-off-to-psych insane.

“Yeah, I just think I need to go to bed,” Nicole lies.

“Good call, buddy,” Shapiro says, pouring Nicole’s drink out on the ground. “See ya tomorrow.”

_Tomorrow_.

//

**Reset Five**

After she’s sluiced off the sweat from the Lieutenant’s PT, Nicole heads straight to Nedley’s office. She needs to start taking control of something, somehow. She has no clue what these loops are, and is more likely to get locked up than helped if she tells anyone about it, but she needs to feel she’s moving forward.

The only thing she can think of is asking Nedley to train her.

When they get out in the hangar reserved for suit exercises, Nedley has to stifle a laugh at the awkward way Nicole waddles across the pad towards him.

“How long’s basic training now? Five months?”

“Three, Sergeant.” Nicole’s voice crackles weakly through the radio built into her helmet, and Nedley stomps over to adjust it properly.

“Three months. Three months to turn a civilian into a suit soldier. Ridiculous. And how much of that three months did you actually spend in a suit?”

“Last three weeks, Sergeant.”

Nedley harrumphs again, but seems satisfied with the clear signal coming out of Nicole’s transmitter. “Not a lot I can do with you in just one afternoon.”

“Target practice?” Nicole suggests hopefully.

“No.” Nedley smiles wanly at her enthusiasm. “Not enough time to make you a better marksman. Best thing I can do for you is to teach you to move with your balancer switched off.”

Nicole stares blankly at him. One of the things that had been drilled into them through their training was the necessity of the balancer. Without it, one misstep would send an unwary soldier crashing to the ground, unable to compensate for the weight of the suit. The balancer kept you upright, even if it made you move like a toddler with a full diaper. Switch it off, and she’d be eating dirt as soon as they hit the battlefield.

By the end of the day, Nicole can get from one end of Nedley’s obstacle course to the other without falling. Most of the time, at least.

She’s drenched in sweat all over again, and even more wrung out than she had been after the Lieutenant’s PT. Moving in the suit was a lot harder without the balancer taking most of the weight, but Nedley was right. It had been holding her back.

Sergeant Nedley seems far less pleased with the afternoon’s results than she is. “Well, I guess it’ll have to do. Not much more we can do before tonight’s briefing.”

But Nicole knows something Nedley doesn’t; she’s got all the time in the world.

//

**Reset Fourteen**

Nicole’s boots are the first to hit the sand, after she shoulder-checks Lonnie so he falls off the edge of the ramp. It’s a dick move, but she needs him at the back of the section if she has any hope of getting him through the first minute. He’s got an unerring ability to find the worst patches of the fight.

There’s one in every section.

If nothing else, Nicole’s convinced she can use her memories to get her section through the day _mostly_ in one piece.

Then she sees Waverly fighting, a clear patch in an otherwise chaotic, half-hazy world. She fights with precision, with a skill even Nedley and the other old veterans don’t have. Even the best suit soldiers look a little clumsy, a little stiff and over-sized in the bulky exoskeleton.

Waverly Earp moves as if her suit is a second skin.

//

**Reset Fifteen**

“Op UNICORN is the largest coalition offensive yet in the war against the Revenants. Joined by our British allies, the United Nations Defence Force will conduct a surprise assault on the Revenant forward area, intending to...”

Nicole zones out. She’s heard this briefing fifteen times already, and could probably give the whole thing word-perfect by now. Hell, she could probably give it better than the commander, seeing as she knows what’s actually going to happen tomorrow.

The commander’s plan ain’t worth shit.

Nicole’s mind drifts from the hangar to the flat fields of yesterday’s — tomorrow’s — fight. Off to the side, Captain Earp stands with her squad, watching the commander with an impassive face.

_What’s she thinking?_ Nicole wonders. She’s the coalition’s pride and joy, its crowning glory, and here she stands, looking as bored as Nicole feels, waiting for a man who’s never worn a fighting suit in his life to send her out. Waiting for another H-hour to roll around and launch her into the same fucking cycle, all over again.

Waverly is different without the sword in her hand. Her expression is closed, cold, but in a studied way. As if she’s painting on anger she’s never actually felt. In just the thin material of her uniform, it’s clear how small Waverly actually is.

The woman standing next to Waverly catches Nicole staring and glares at her until Nicole looks away. She’s wearing exactly the same uniform as Waverly, right down to the ‘EARP’ emblazoned across the right side of her chest.

//

**Reset Twenty-Two**

The days take on a never-ending monotony. The same routine, over and over.

Every day, Shapiro’s grin appears over the edge of the bunk.

Every day, Lieutenant Dolls leads them on a run.

Every day, the same lunch. Anybody would tire of the same food, twenty-two times over.

Every day, she begs Nedley to spend the afternoon training her in the fighting suit.

She’s getting better, inch by inch, but every time she hits that battlefield, she dies.

//

**Reset Twenty-Seven**

Nedley’s getting suspicious.

At first, Nicole could fumble around a little at the beginning of the session and just play off her skills as being a fast learner, but it wasn’t too long until just the way she walked gave her away. Then she needed a new lie: something about trying out the suit without the balancer, even though her instructors had explicitly told her not to.

He had accepted that excuse for a few more resets; until Nicole messes up. She throws herself down and straight into a smooth roll to get behind cover, landing on her feet in a ready crouch as if the clunky soles of the suit were the same boots she’d been wearing all her life.

“What aren’t you telling me, Private?” Nedley demands.

Nicole goes blank.

She’s saved by Lieutenant Dolls marching in, declaring it’s time to get the platoon to the briefing, but the look in Nedley’s eyes tells her this isn’t the last she’s going to hear about her impossible skills.

//

Of all the parts of the day that Nicole goes through over and over, she reckons the briefing is the worst.

Even Lieutenant Dolls’ gruelling run isn’t that bad. At least no-one’s expecting her to pay attention. She tires of being jacked up by Nedley at the end of every hour long speech, of pretending to listen to the plan she knows is going to fail, laid out in excruciating detail.

This time, Nicole doesn’t look away from Waverly when Wynonna stares her down. She’s fresh out of fucks to give, and Waverly is the only thing in the hangar that doesn’t bore Nicole to tears.

Wynonna turns and whispers to Waverly, who turns to look at Nicole. The look in her eyes dazes Nicole like a pace stick to the back of the knees. Those eyes see right through her, and Nicole has the bizarre feeling that Waverly knows exactly what she’s going through.

But she can’t. She can’t. That’s impossible.

Isn’t it?

//

Nicole charges down the ramp with Nedley bellowing at her, trying to get her under control, but she just runs away from the truck, taking out the Revenants she knows will kill her section as she goes, fearful now that he’ll see, he’ll know, and he’ll stop her from doing what she needs to.

Somehow, she ends up in Waverly’s area of the fight again, and stops, panting, to watch her for a moment.

If Nicole didn’t know any better, she’d think Waverly was stuck in the same loop as she was. The way she seems ready for the next blow, the smooth way she slides from one stance to the other as if executing a routine she’s practiced a hundred times.

A Revenant dodges a swing of her sword and rises to send Waverly flying with a single blow to the jaw. As quickly as any other move she makes, Waverly tugs a grenade off her belt and flings it at the Revenant’s feet.

If Waverly was looping, she would have known the Revenant would duck. She would have been able to hit him.

Seconds after the explosion Waverly is striding towards the flames, assuming the same rhythm Nicole had admired before getting knocked on her ass.

No, she’s not looping. Waverly is _just that good_.

Then and there, Nicole decides she has to get to Waverly. If she’s going to get her section up the beach, she needs more than just the things she knows. They need to be charging behind a sword like that.

Nicole needs to follow a woman like that.

//

**Reset Twenty-Eight**

Shoulder Lonnie off the ramp.

Run forward ten paces, pause to fire at the Revenant that’s charging straight at Hunter.

Yell at Shapiro to duck right, tell her there’s a covered ridge a hundred metres past the burning shed. Push her away when she tries to argue.

Run in the opposite direction from the rest of the section, heading directly for the spot where Waverly’s helicopter is going to crash.

Get hit by a tank.

//

**Reset Thirty-Three**

Nicole runs across the beach with a long, practiced stride. She mutters out a series of counts, one after the other, weaving and ducking around obstacles that appear out of nowhere. Sometimes she doubles back, or circles around something in an indirect route. It’s all part of the pattern, all carefully worked out, all to lead her to one specific point.

Body-checking Waverly Earp to the ground, just as she emerges from her helicopter.

Nicole pulls off her helmet so Waverly can hear her. “We’ve gotta get going, we’re getting slaughtered. I need you to help me. Us. It’s a slaughter.”

Half-sitting on Waverly, she points her gun up and shoots down a Revenant without looking at it. She knows if she hadn’t, it would have torn off her head.

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” Nicole shouts. “This helicopter is going to explode!”

Nicole knows the next Revenant is going to come from around the tail, so she steps back and raises her gun, spraying bullets at it until it falls to the ground with a squeal.

“Come on!” Nicole doesn’t have time to make sure Waverly’s following because she knows yet another Revenant is going to be on top of them in a second, and she needs to get out and take aim if she’s going to be able to take it out. If she lingers, as she has before, it will kill her.

This time, for the first time, Nicole sends a burst straight into its face, and she’s done it. She’s through.

When she turns, Waverly hasn’t followed. She’s still standing in the helicopter's shadow, gazing at Nicole with an expression somewhere between amazement, and hope, and a tinge of something that looks like sorrow.

“What are you doing? Come on!”

Nicole’s beginning to panic now. Of all the obstacles she’s had to overcome so far, she never expected that persuading Waverly to walk _away_ from the burning helicopter would be a problem.

Waverly throws her blade down. For the first time in any of Nicole’s loops, she speaks. “Find me when you wake up.”

“What?” Nicole can’t quite believe what she’s seeing, or hearing.

“Come find me when you wake up,” Waverly repeats, and then the helicopter explodes.


	2. The Angel of Purgatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _You can be an angel of mercy or give in to hate_   
>  _You can try to fight it just like it every other careless mistake_   
>  _How do you justify? I'm mystified by the ways of your heart_   
>  _With a million lies the truth will rise to tear you apart_
> 
> _No one gets out alive, every day is do or die_  
>  _The one thing you leave behind_  
>  _Is how did you love?_  
>  _  
>  **How did you love?**  
> _  
>  How Did You Love – Shinedown

When Waverly Earp had found herself looping, the first thing she figured out was the rules. That it reset on her death. That it took her back to the same time and place, no matter where or how she died. That she retained her memories no matter how many times she looped.

The second thing she realised was that she couldn’t get out.

//

She’d grown up hopping the country. School in Ontario, where her mother lived. Summers out in Alberta, where her father’s ranch was.

The summers had been rough. Not because of the work: Waverly loved to help out around the ranch, to be moving, to feel really good and tired at the end of the day.

It was Willa who was different, out under the open skies. Something about the roughness of their father rubbed off on her, and she was meaner than she ever was at home. Wynonna always followed Willa, no matter where she went or what she did, and Waverly was best off fending for herself, spending as much time away from the house as possible.

She came to love the soft blue of the sky, and the freedom it represented.

She came to hate the red of the sunsets, the ending of the day.

Willa had been the first to join up, when the Revenants came. Wynonna had followed a few months later, leaving the aftermath of an explosive argument behind her. Waverly had always sworn she wouldn’t, that she didn’t want to fight. That she’d stay home. That she’d never leave their mother.

Until the attack came.

It had been a single Revenant that had somehow grabbed hold of a plane about to head back across the border. It had killed the pilot, but not before he’d flown most of the way back to Trenton.

The plane and the Revenant had crashed near Oshawa. It had killed almost a thousand people by the time it killed Michelle Earp, and at least another six hundred after her, before it was finally stopped.

Waverly had joined up the next day.

//

Purgatory wasn’t the first time Waverly had fought in the suit, but the hard exoskeleton still felt foreign to her. She can’t quite get her shoulders in the right position to close the breastplate comfortably, no matter how much she wriggles.

“Come here.” Wynonna yanks at the shoulders of the suit, sending Waverly staggering. It does the trick though, and she can snap the clasps shut.

Willa snickers. “Got your nappies in a twist?”

Waverly ignores her, focusing on pulling her gloves on instead of watching Wynonna turn away without saying a word. Wynonna never said anything, never did anything, when Willa snarked at her. There was nothing to say.

Then, to Waverly’s surprise, Willa grabs hold of her glove. Waverly recoils, but instead of another scathing remark Willa tightens the wrist strapping. “You can’t have a firm grip with a loose glove. Make sure you’ve got your gun level and pointed at the target before you fire. No point wasting bullets swinging your arm around wildly.”

She stomps off down the gangway, leaving Wynonna and Waverly alone in the suit vault.

“Why is she still so mean?” Waverly hates the whine that sneaks into her voice. It makes her feel six years old all over again.

“It’s how she keeps going,” Wynonna explains as she double-checks and tightens the remaining straps holding Waverly’s suit in place. “Willa’s got her anger; I’ve got my whiskey. You’ll find something, soon enough.”

//

If it wasn’t for the knife Wynonna always sticks in her boot, even in the suits, Waverly isn’t sure she’d be able to tell one back from another.

The buildings are sparser out here, the flat, squat cuboids of a business park. Abandoned cars, dark windows. No signs of life, but then no humans have been here in at least a week. Not since the Revenants started raiding. Three days of screaming, and then nothing.

Looks like they might have moved on.

Or they’ve holed up down here.

Only one way to find out.

“Sergeant Earp, take Alpha and Echo sections and search the buildings on the west side of the MSR,” their platoon commander orders. “Bravo, Charlie, with me to the east.”

Willa nods, and leads them at a jog down the road, directly to the lee of the nearest building. Hand gestures and desperate panting echoing in Waverly’s ears as they approach the first door, hugging the wall in a cramped line. Waverly's the third person through the door, fanning out into the single room.

There’s nothing in the room but a limb, which makes Wynonna gasp. “Score. Is that...?”

Willa stuffs the limb in the small pack on her back. “Revenant. Yup.” She stands up and gives Wynonna a friendly punch in the arm. “This is what we’re good at. Kick door, take banana.”

“This is the good shit, alright,” Wynonna agrees.

”It’s still fresh,“ Waverly murmurs.

Willa’s head snaps towards her. “What did you say?”

“The blood. It’s fresh.”

Wynonna and Willa’s stances immediately change. Their guns snap back up.

Before she can do the same, Waverly hears the bullets.

Then voices are screaming, and all around her bodies charge towards the exit, towards the source of the gunfire.

Waverly finds herself running after Wynonna but struggling to keep up. Wynonna has more experience and moves far more easily than Waverly in the bulky fighting suit.

A strange Revenant suddenly blocks her off from the rest of her section, and her arm flies up just in time to fire up into it as it pins her to the ground. She’s hit, she knows she’s hit, but the Revenant is screaming, and she’s coated with something that must be its blood.

 _Took you with me_ , is Waverly’s last thought before everything goes black.

//

Waverly’s panicked thrashing sends her camp cot flying out from under her, leaving her tangled in the sleeping bag she’s tightly wrapped in even when everyone else has nothing but a light blanket.

It’s dark, and she can’t get out.

“Waverly. Waverly!” Wynonna has ripped the bag open and is shaking her by the shoulders. Waverly doesn’t realise she’s babbling until Wynonna clamps a hand over her mouth to shut her up. “It was a dream, baby girl, nothing but a bad dream.”

“A bad dream that woke up everyone else in the whole fucking camp,” Willa grouches from her own cot.

“’M sorry.” Waverly wraps her arms tightly around herself as she sits up. No matter what Wynonna says to try to comfort her, she knows it’s all wrong. Tomorrow, she will die.

//

The fourth time she wakes up, Waverly simply curls up into a ball. She feels cursed, running through the same steps over and over again.

The town is called Purgatory, and that’s exactly what this feels like. Maybe this loop is what happens when you die. This is some kind of hell, and she’s stuck in it.

//

Waverly rubs her tired eyes and tries to focus on the screen again. For the last sixteen nights -- for the last sixteen loops -- she’s been here until the first rays of dawn, hunting through the archives for any scrap of information on the Revenants that might help her break out.

The only Revenant body that had actually been dissected in a lab was the one that had killed her mother.

All the rest were on battlefields owned by the Revenants.

Every test possible had been run, until there were no more cells to test. Nothing left to help figure out what the Revenants are, why they attacked Earth, or how to defeat them. There’s nothing about looping, save a few field reports that describe reaction times as so fast it’s almost as if the Revenant knows what’s going to happen before it does.

Little do they know.

For the first time in her life, research has failed her. There’s nothing in the literature she hasn’t read three times over already and none of it tells her anything she doesn’t already know.

Waverly could probably re-write a few of those articles with what she knows now. In fact, there’s probably only a handful of people that know more about Revenants than she does, and only one name she recognises. It was on the camp roster.

Dr. Rosita Bustillos.

//

The shouting can be heard from the far end of the corridor and, if the grimaces of the people hurrying past Waverly are anything to judge by, is a fairly common occurrence. Everyone she walks past seems to be in a hurry to go the other way.

Waverly raps lightly on the door. It’s yanked open.

“Oh, great. Another soldier come to mess up my day.” Rosita glares at her. “What do you want?”

“I - I heard you’re one of the top experts on Revenant biology.”

“ _The_ top expert, if these idiots would stop breaking everything they touch.”

Waverly glances at them. Green privates who barely need to shave. Someone had put them here to keep them out of the way of danger, not for their ability to carry out delicate work.

She turns back to Rosita. “I need to talk to you. Privately.”

Rosita’s eyes roll with exasperation. “Look, I’m sure you’re very nice, but if you’re looking to get your itches scratched, you’re gonna have to ask someone else. I’m busy.”

Embarrassment burns under Waverly’s collar, and she struggles not to stutter. “That’s - wha – I’m not – I –“ Her voice trails away to a mutter. “‘S not what I’m here for.”

“Then what?”

“I read your paper about swarm intelligence in Revenants.”

“And just like everyone else, you’ve come to lambast me as a fool?”

“No. No. I think you’re right.” Waverly takes a deep breath. “In fact, I know you’re right. And it’s going to sound crazy, but I need five -- maybe ten minutes -- of your time. Alone. Please.”

//

“You’re right, that does sound crazy.”

“Champagne.”

Rosita stares at her. “Not really helping with the crazy impression, there.”

“It’s what you told me to tell you, last time we had this conversation. You were about to throw me out of your office, but I begged you to tell me something. Anything. A sentence, or memory, that I wouldn’t be able to know unless we’d already had this conversation.”

“And you’re saying I told you “champagne”?” Rosita snorts. “Sorry, kiddo, but you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

“It’s the reason you chose bio-chemistry at university. The bubbles. You said the reason champagne has bubbles is because of imperfections in the glass, and you knew you had to try and understand a world in which something so beautiful came out of a flaw.

And then you threw me out of your office.”

Waverly can feel her shoulder beginning to cramp from the tension, but she can’t bear to move under Rosita’s blank gaze. The moment stretches on, and on.

“You’d better tell me everything you know.”

//

The days spent researching and theorizing with Rosita could almost be described as pleasant, if it wasn’t for the fact that every other day is spent in fighting her way through the business park.

Waverly’s long since passed the point when she can out-run Willa and Wynonna. She knows where every Revenant is hiding, where each attack is coming from, how many, and when. She can play the entire fight in her head, in thirty-six different ways.

None of them work.

No matter how good she is, no matter how well she plans it, she can’t get out of that park. Either she runs out of ammunition, or it takes too many shots to bring down a Revenant before it’s on top of her, and the loop starts all over again.

“I’m never going to be able to get anywhere with these shitty suit guns. There’s no way I can carry enough bullets to get through that wave of Revenants.”

Waverly tosses her pistol angrily across Rosita’s desk, earning herself a yell and a slap across the head with a thick sheaf of paper.

“The hell you think you’re doing? The equipment in this room is more expensive than an entire platoon’s worth of suits!”

“Sorry.” Waverly picks up and holsters her sidearm, then helps Rosita straightens out the scattered tablets. “It’s just... impossible, don’t you see? How am I supposed to fight my way through an endless supply of enemies?”

“I’m good, but even I can’t make you a refilling gun.”

“I just need a weapon that lasts as long as me.”

“There isn’t one. Doesn’t matter what gun you take, once you run out of bullets all you’ve got is a poorly-shaped club.” A strange, distant look passes over Rosita’s face before she darts over to a table covered in discarded prototypes and begins to rummage. “I think I know someone who can help.”

//

The military likes to sprawl. Stretch out. Take up all the possible space it can. Place its buildings far apart; spread its assets so a single strike can’t take out everything. Make a display of power. Make everybody without shiny shoulders hump ass stupidly long distances.

So, of course, the building housing the suit mechanics is on the other side of the base from Rosita’s research facility, as far as it possibly could be without being outside the wire.

“Jeremy? Jeremy!” There’s a crash, a thump, an indistinct muttering, and then a man appears from behind a table, rubbing his head. “Is it ready?” Waverly asks him.

“Yes, but... a... sword? Isn’t that a little bit antiquated?”

“We’re always trying to fight the last war. Always one step behind.” She lifts the blade, turning it so it catches the fluorescent light in Jeremy’s workshop. Spare metal isn’t that easy to find: he’s beaten and sharpened the edge of a broken helicopter wing, and molded a handle in one end. On such short notice it’s impressive work, and somehow the crudeness of the weapon seems appropriate. “This time, I’m one step ahead.”

“Actually, technologically, you’re several centuries behind...” Jeremy’s eyes fix on the blade’s  
edge as Waverly’s practice swing whistles in front of him. “You sure you know how to use that thing?”

“Oh, I’ve used it before,” Waverly says with a distant smile.

//

Waverly’s not just the first in her suit, but she’s striding up and down the line, adjusting straps, patting backs, joking with a squad she’s only been with for a matter of weeks.

From their perspective, that is.

Willa scowls. “What are you so excited about?”

“Time to go out and do what we do best,” Waverly replies, reaching inside her locker for the rubber and nylon sheath that holds her sword. “Kick door.”

“Take banana,” Wynonna completes automatically.

Waverly straps the makeshift scabbard to her back and then grins at Wynonna. “Kill Revenants.”

“Wow. Somebody drank deep from the Kool Aid this morning,” Willa mutters as she goes through the last of her suit checks.

//

Of all the possible variations, Waverly’s found it’s easiest to act as a normal part of the team until they’ve fought their way back out of the building. They simply won’t survive the arguments or questions that fly at Waverly if she tries to take the lead any earlier.

Only once they’re outside again does Waverly draw her sword.

It still gives her a little thrill, the first time her blade catches the light. It took her several resets to learn how to use it, but now it feels like it fits, just an extension of her gloved hand.

Waverly beheads a Revenant.

Willa’s impressed, although she tries not to show it. ‘Wow, you might not be quite as useless as you look.”

“Willa!”

“What? It’s true.”

“Just quit being such a dick.”

“Look sharp,” says Waverly, lifting her sword again. “There’s two Revs other side of that hill, ten o’clock.”

Wynonna looks confused. “How do you know that?”

“It doesn’t matter, we gotta go. Now!”

Waverly starts to walk forward, but is stopped when Willa steps in front of her and plants a hand in the centre of her breastplate. “You do not give the orders around here!”

“Willa -“ Wynonna starts.

“No. Our grunt little sister does not get to throw her weight around like that.”

Waverly just smiles. She tries, every time, but always with the same outcome.

Leaving Wynonna and Willa stunned in her wake, Waverly charges up the hill alone. By the time the first Revenant appears over the crest her sword is already swinging.

//

Every time, Willa refuses to listen until Waverly’s hacked their way out of the business park and into the town streets. Willa had tried to take them east, back towards the rest of their platoon, despite Waverly’s warning that half a dozen Revenants were about to come barrelling down the road. They’d lost two soldiers to that attack and Waverly had only been able to save the others because she knew exactly where to be and who to sacrifice. She’d gone through that fight too many times and knew there was no way to survive it without losing someone.

That didn’t make it any easier to choose.

She lets the blade thunk against the ground. There’s no time to spare, but she just needs to breathe. Just a moment.

Behind her the others cheer and whoop at planes zipping over their heads. Wynonna’s the loudest, pumping her fist at the sky.

Willa doesn’t join in. She just stares at Waverly. “How?”

“There isn’t time. We need to get moving. Three blocks south, there’s a half-demolished building. If we can get to it fast enough, we can turn the tables. Ambush them.”

Willa nods, then barks an order that gets their squad moving again. Before today, Waverly had only ever seen the rough side of Willa’s anger. She’d never realised how Willa used it as a tool, that she could harden that anger to a point and drive it towards her goal with a steadfast determination.

Waverly’s heartbeats thump away while she waits for the Revenants to enter Willa’s kill box. At first, she thinks she’s got the timing a little off. Maybe they moved a little faster this time.

As the seconds drain away, they take Waverly’s confidence with them.

She knows the Revenants are going to come down this street. She knows. They have to. It’s exactly what they did last time, and this ambush is the only way to get Wynonna and Willa through the next attack. The only way to get Waverly back to friendly lines.

The shock when a mass of Revenants stream over the wall immediately behind Wynonna freezes Waverly in place.

She stops. Stares. That’s different. That’s new. There’s no way that could happen. No reason for their tactics to change, they couldn’t possibly know where she is. Unless...

Unless the Revenants can remember the loops, too.

//

“...so yeah, I can remember, but so can the Revenants, and an enemy that can keep resetting the battlefield is always going to win, no matter what I do.” Waverly’s anxious pacing stops at the end of her rant, but her heartbeat and respiration continue to thrum.

“Tell me more about this Revenant you killed.”

“I’ve told you everything, Rosita. Over and over again. We spend hours trying to figure it out and never get anywhere new because every day you start right back at the beginning!”

“Yes, but you don’t.”

Waverly turns and stares at Rosita. She hadn’t meant to yell at her, it had just burst out of the desperate frustration, the growing sense of hopelessness she was trying to ignore. Still, it meant that she’s done something different, and when her actions change, the loop changes.

Rosita’s never said that to her before, and the beginning of a thought slithers into being out of the back of her brain.

“No, I don’t. But if you’re the expert, how can I help?

“Where did we get to, yesterday? At the end of the last loop.”

“Well, I mean, you always figure out that the Revenant I killed on my first day somehow triggered the loop. But I don’t need to kill that Revenant to reset the loop: now it resets when I’m killed.”

“So whatever was in that Revenant transferred to you.”

“Yeah, but the Revenants are still remembering the previous loops. Every time I do something different on the battlefield, something big enough for them to notice, next time they’re ready to counter it.”

“But that Revenant can’t be remembering the day. It can’t be, or it would need to be the one resetting the loop in order to remember, just like you are. Unless they don’t think like we do…”

“Yeah, you get to that, eventually. It’s a collective consciousness, you said, like ants, and I’ve somehow tapped into it. We’re just seeing workers, soldiers.”

“So we’ve just got to figure out which one is the queen!” Rosita crows in triumph.

Waverly just sighs. “Yeah, we’ve done this before too. You go through every kind of Revenant in the database, one by one. I’ve tried killing them all: there is no queen.”

Rosita pushes her chair slowly away from the desk, and lets it spin. “Unless it’s a Revenant we haven’t seen yet.”

“What?” They might be back into new territory, but Waverly’s too weary to get excited over another, new dead end. All of them, dead ends.

“It would make sense,” Rosita says in a dreamy, far-away voice Waverly’s come to recognise. It’s the voice Rosita uses right before she disappears under a pile of paper, or begins typing furiously on her keyboard, following her lightning thoughts down a new path. “If the queen is the only one that can remember, of course we wouldn’t have seen it. They’d keep it behind the battle lines; far from anywhere it could get hurt. They wouldn’t risk it, it’s too important.” She pulls a map out with a triumphant yell, spreads it out on the table and jabs her finger at a spot the other side of the river. “There! I’d been getting reports of some strange activity – Revenants circling the same spot, like a patrol – but no sign of why. That must be where the queen is.”

“Which means that’s where I need to go.”

//

They have to pull back, through the remains of a different platoon. Most are dead. Waverly is grateful she doesn’t recognise anyone. One man is still alive, his arm several feet ahead of him, trying to pull himself towards it with the one still attached. When Wynonna reaches down to him he just... stops. She pushes the arm forward, within his grasp, and then looks up and catches Waverly watching.

Wynonna shrugs.

It’s the first time Waverly’s seen this. It’ll fade a little more every time she see it until it’s barely a blip, but this time it’s fresh. This time it hurts.

She forces herself to look away. Behind them the Revenants stream over the bridges and into the town beyond, over-running the last of their battalion.

 _Only_ over the bridges.

The thought feels bizarre to Waverly at first but the more she watches, the more it settles. The Revenants aren’t crossing the river. They aren’t even trying to. Not a single one touches the water. Only the bridges.

But why?

//

This time when Waverly rushes into Rosita’s office she barely lets her finish a sentence. She orders the privates out, rapid fires through enough of the champagne speech and Revenant biology to convince Rosita to listen, then immediately asks if the Revenants can cross water.

“Of course they c - but - no. That’s ridiculous.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought at first, too. So... I tested it.”

“How?”

“Pushed a Revenant into the river.”

“Damn. And?”

“It sunk right to the bottom. They can’t swim. Too dense to even move in water. Can’t use boats, or don’t know what they’re for. I triple-checked every report I could find: not a single description of a Revenant crossing water. Ever.”

“And then?”

“I died. Again. Of course.”

Rosita taps her pencil against her nose, processing. Waverly can barely keep still with bottled up excitement. Finally, a breakthrough she can use against the Revenants, and Rosita’s sitting there like she’s contemplating a crossword puzzle.

“So...” Rostia says, eventually. “If they need the bridges to cross...”

“Blow up the bridges. Exactly.”

“That’s great! We’re safe on this side of the river.”

“But the queen’s on the other side.”

“What queen?”

“No time to explain that all over again. I just need you to blow the bridges, but not until I’m on the other side, alright?”

“O-kay. Sure. But where I am going to get that much C-4?”

“I know a guy. Well, my sister knows a guy. In - well - kind of the biblical sense. It doesn’t really matter. He’ll get it for you. I just need you to wire it up.”

//

Waverly unbuckles and lifts aside the bulky rocket launcher that would normally be strapped to her right arm. She knows she won’t need it.

She slips her arms into the sleeves and shrugs on the bulk of the suit.

A series of rapid clicks follow as she snaps the breastplate catch closed, taps the pauldrons down across her shoulder, checks the safety of the machine-gun mounted on her left arm in a series of swift, practiced moves.

“You sure about this, baby girl?” Wynonna asks when she sees Waverly slide the two-handed blade free from the makeshift sheath that holds it in place on her back.

Waverly holds up the blade at an angle so she can check Jeremy’s handiwork. Perfect, as always.

“Every day so far,” she replies.

//

The dust from the bridge explosions makes it impossible to see anything. Waverly can barely see the tip of her sword, but she can’t stop fighting, can’t stop pushing forward. She only gets once chance to try and pull this off. Next time, the Revenants will know; this time, her only advantage is surprise.

She doesn’t even turn to make sure her section is following. This is her task, and hers alone. There are soldiers around her fighting, yelling, dying, but she doesn’t look at their faces. She only looks at the Revenants that fall to her blade, one after the other, inching her ever closer to her goal.

Waverly doesn’t know how long she’s been fighting for, but she turns to face the next enemy and finds there’s no one left to fight. Just soldiers to her side, and empty space in front. Planes hum over their heads, and ahead of them a series of explosions send the other soldiers into paroxysms of joy.

They’re bombing the queen, Waverly realizes. Maybe Rosita managed to barge her way into a targeting board, berate the brass into actually doing something creative and effective for once.

But... it can’t be that simple. If it was that simple, why had Waverly spent what felt like months trying to slog her way through endless damn Revenants? She watches the bombs fall, slamming into the ground, but even as the Revenants on the surface are destroyed, more appear to replace them.

Suddenly, the thought comes to her. The queen is underground. Where the bombs can’t reach.

Waverly breaks into a run.

Revenants are streaming towards her now in a wild, desperate charge. The bombs might not be able to reach the queen, but the Coalition has placed a target on that spot, and the Revenants know why.

Waverly lifts her sword, and the enemy engulfs her.

//

Waverly jerks up, disorientated. She immediately notices the tube in her arm that’s transfusing blood into her and panics, tries to rip it out. Doc and Wynonna together restrain her and stop her. She lies back, panting, knowing that it’s no good.

She can feel it. She’s lost it.

She looks over at Wynonna sitting in the visitor’s chair. Waverly wonders briefly where Willa is, whether she’s injured too. Then she sees the little bird necklace in Wynonna’s hand, and the dried red puffiness of her eyes.

Willa never takes that charm off.

Doc assumes Waverly crying because she’s injured and just lost a sister. It’s not. Not just that. There’s something bigger than her, bigger than their pain. She lost the loop, and never found the queen. She might have won the battle, but this means they’ll lose the war.

“Earp. Earp. Waverly!” She only looks at him when he says her first name. “Listen to me. You have succeeded. The day is won. Do not quit on us now, Waverly.”

“Yeah. You’re a big - a big damn hero,” Wynonna half chokes, half spits.

“Wynonna…” Waverly starts, but Wynonna is already on her feet.

Leaving.

//

After Purgatory all anyone really wanted was her photo. Photos of her in the fighting suit, photos of her with what was left of her squad. They pushed a commission on her and made her the poster child for the war. A poster child for the success of the new fighting suits, and the wave of recruitment they inspire.

With a fighting suit and a few months training, they claim, any soldier can be a harbinger of destruction. You too, the posters claim, can be a hero. Just like Waverly Earp, the Angel of Purgatory.

The Battle of Purgatory had been the coalition’s only victory over the Revenants in the war. It had even halted the Revenant advance: for a little while, at least.

After Purgatory, Waverly paints her exoskeleton red so she stands out on the battlefield. She knows she’s a rallying point, a shining beacon of hope to the hundreds of troops that die around her, but more than that, she knows that the Revenants are looking for her.

She stole their power. She knows their weakness. As the Coalition lines are pushed back they seek her out in every battle, and Waverly refuses to let anyone die in her place.

If it wasn’t for Wynonna, she’s certain she would have died shortly after Purgatory. Every time the Revenants seem close to getting her, Wynonna steps in, guns blazing, and Waverly can’t watch another sister die.

So she lives, to keep Wynonna alive.

It doesn’t take a genius to know Wynonna’s thinking the same thing.

//

The morning before the coalition attack, Waverly woke early. She always has the fighting cage to herself, without having to ask. There’s only one person that speaks to her the day before a fight.

Yoga had become her pre-battle routine, her way to center herself. Once, the steady sweep of her limbs through the various poses had amped her up, got her blood following and limbs moving ready for the day. Now, she uses the familiar movements to steady herself, to still the thundering noises that keep replaying through her head, over and over.

She’s holding mayurasana, her only point of contact with the floor her backwards facing palms, when she hears the familiar click of Wynonna’s parade boots coming towards her. Waverly doesn’t move, not yet. She knows exactly what Wynonna’s going to say, and it can wait until she does.

“It’s time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Both the manga and the movie left me wanting to know more about Rita's backstory, so I indulged here. It really helped me get a feel for the changes Waverly as a character would have gone through. The Wayhaught goodness and pining will be back next chapter, I promise!


	3. Again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.”
> 
> //
> 
>  _I’m in love with an angel who’s afraid of the light_  
>  _Her halo is broken but there's fight in her eyes_  
>  [...]  
>  _You wanted a soldier but it wasn't me_  
>  _'Cause I could never set you free_
> 
> Angel – Theory of a Deadman

**Reset Forty-Two**

It takes four resets for Nicole to figure out how to get to Waverly without being shot for desertion or trespassing along the way.

It takes another five to figure out how to get through Wynonna.

Nicole ducks past her to get into the fighting cage.

“Captain! Captain Earp!”

“Yes?” Waverly snaps, rolling out of rising cobra to spring easily up onto her feet. “What do you want? How did you get in here?”

“I –“ Nicole chokes on her words. All that effort, trying to get here, _dying_ to get here, and now she can’t force a single word past her lips. All the rehearsed speeches, all the explanations she’d run through her head seem woefully insufficient.

It doesn’t help that Nicole’s interrupted Waverly in the middle of an intense work out. The sheen of sweat on her skin makes it look like Waverly has been oiled, the hair plastered to her temples and panting breaths transporting Nicole’s thoughts to an entirely different physical activity.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” Waverly stares at her, face as unreactive as Lieutenant Dolls’, and Nicole struggles to find the words to explain the pull she’s feeling. She has no idea how to tell Waverly that she has charged towards her across an open battlefield, over and over, on nothing but the gut sensation that somehow Waverly can help. ”Did someone say you could speak to me?”

“Yes. Yes!” Nicole seizes on the question. “You. Tomorrow, on the beach, you told me – will tell me – to come find you when I wake up.” Waverly’s blank, vaguely outraged expression animates into one of shock that makes Nicole’s hopes _soar_. “You know what’s happening to me.”

//

“You don’t tell anyone other than me, or the people I specifically introduce you to, what’s happening, you understand? They’ll just cart you off to psych, and then dissect you.”

“Okay,” Nicole pants slightly: for a short person, Waverly sure can walk fast. Even in the cramped building, people had dived to get out of her way, leaving Nicole to trail along and try to look as if she was supposed to be there.

“Tell me what happened, the first time you died. You got Revenant blood all over you? Right?”

Nicole just catches the door to the outside before it swings shut. “Right. It -”

“But this Revenant was different?”

“Yeah, blue. How do you -”

“You got its blood all over you?”

“Yeah, but –“

Waverly stops when she reaches a G-wagen, the first time she’s even slowed in her charge across the pavement. “And tomorrow, on the beach. They know we’re coming? It’s a slaughter?”

“Yeah, but what can I do about it? I’m just one person, and every time I go out there I get killed.”

“But you remember. And that’s going to help us win the war.”

Waverly leaps into the driver’s seat of the G-wagen, leaving Nicole to stumble around to the passenger side. She doesn’t seem to have enough brain left to make her feet work, not with all the questions swirling in her brain.

All this time, all these resets, and no answers. No reasons why, no direction, no hope or end in sight. Now she’s found someone who seems to know what’s going on, but Waverly will barely let her finish a sentence. When she does, Nicole’s not sure which question she wants to ask first.

“Wait, wait. What’s happening to me?”

“I’ll explain everything. But not here.”

//

The building Waverly takes Nicole to looks as if it used to be a Tim Hortons. A few bright red letters still cling to the brick work, but now they spell “Torts” instead. Someone with a weird sense of humor has spray painted an outline of a tortoise next to the last “s”.

Inside people in lab coats work feverishly, filling the room with weird smells and the lingering taste of burned meat. Nicole doubts it’s just over-done chicken.

Waverly walks too fast for Nicole to get a good look at their work, though, marching straight through two doors in fast succession, and locking the last one as soon as Nicole steps through it.

Sitting at the desk in front of them is yet another white coat, who spins around on her chair to glare at Nicole.

“Who’s this?”

“Rosita, she’s me,” Waverly explains. “Well, who I used to be. At Purgatory. She has what I had.”

Rosita’s expression turns to one of interest, although Nicole gets the impression it’s the same face she wears when a petri dish finally turns up the result she wants.

“When did she die?”

“Tomorrow.”

Rosita stands, hands behind her back, and begins peering into Nicole’s eyes, so close Nicole leans back slightly. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Nicole swallows. “I don’t know - two? Isn’t anyone going to -”

“No, three,” Rosita corrects, circling around Nicole and pulling down her collar to get a good look at the back of her neck. “So this is the first time we’ve had this conversation, good. Have you been experiencing any headaches?”

“No, but I don’t understand -“

Rosita yanks Nicole’s shirt up to examine her abdomen. “Any stomach pain? Intestinal distress?”

“I’m fine, other than the repeated dying -“ Nicole snipes as she tries to force her shirt back down.

“Trouble sleeping?”

“What the hell is going on!?” Nicole yells.

Waverly places a gentle hand on Rosita’s shoulder, pausing her examination. “It’s okay. I had what you have, at Purgatory. But I... lost it.”

“So there’s a cure?” Nicole breaks out of Rosita’s grasp, brimming with hope. “What is it? How do I get it?”

“You don’t. At least, not yet. There are some things you need to know - and do - first. We’re going to explain everything.”

//

Nicole lets the chair spin slowly underneath her. She’d slumped into it about ten minutes into a lecture about Revenant biology, given in split sentences as Waverly and Rosita excitedly interrupted each other. Most of the information is going to take a while to sink into her brain, but the one thing she can cling to now is that she’s not alone. She’s not going insane.

Or at least, if she is, she’s got company.

“....and an enemy that can predict the future...” Waverly says.

“...is an enemy you can’t defeat,” Nicole finishes.

“But you have the power, now. Like Waverly did at Purgatory. We don’t know how, but somehow killing the Revenant you did lets you...hmm... _hijack_ the loop. Instead of resetting when that Revenant dies -“

“It resets when I die.”

Waverly nods. “Which gives us the advantage.”

“So why don’t we use it? Why don’t we go to the commander, he’ll have to listen if it’s _you_ , tell him -“

“Tell him what?” Waverly snaps. “That you can see the future? How well do you think that’s going to go down? You think he’ll believe us, do you?”

“...No.”

“So now you know,” Waverly concludes. “Tomorrow, we won’t need to waste this time; use it to tell us what you learned in the previous reset.”

“About this boss Revenant I have to find?”

“About the fight. You won’t be able to get to the queen unless you can get past that first battle line and for that, you’ll need me.”

“But - I’ve seen you fight. How can _I_ help?”

“Every time you live the day again, you learn more. You find us the best way through, and you come here and brief me how. In the meantime, I’ll train you.”

“I’ve been training, every day, with my Serge –“

“Not like this.”

//

Waverly shoves a sword at Nicole. It’s rough, chipped, in far worse condition than Waverly’s, and Nicole just stares at it.

“Take it,” Waverly orders.

Nicole gingerly wraps her fingers around the handle. “Why...”

“Ammo runs out. Mechanisms jam. If you’re going to get me across that field tomorrow, you’re going to need a backup that won’t fail you. A weapon that’s going to last as long as you will.” She grins. “Hopefully.”

Waverly comes at her hard and fast, it’s all Nicole can do to block the strikes. She’s clumsy, jarred to the core with each blow, both hands clinging to the handle in desperation. The weapon is unexpectedly heavy in her hands, compared to how lightly Waverly wields it. Waverly switches grips, switches hands, flows around Nicole like a wave threatening to drown her.

Eventually one of Waverly’s blows cut Nicole, and Nicole takes a knee to place a hand on the wound and staunch the blood.

Waverly comes over and pulls her hand away to look critically at the wound. “This is a very important rule. It’s the only rule. If you’re injured, you have to make sure you die.”

“I - what - why?”

“My last day at Purgatory, I was hit. Badly. Lost consciousness. Lost a lot of blood - but not enough. I woke up in a field hospital with three pints of someone else’s blood in my veins and I was done. Out. I lost the loop.” There’s a shadow behind Waverly’s expression that sinks deeper than her desire to beat the Revenants. For a moment, she looks away from Nicole, and her eyes glass over slightly.

Nicole would bet good money that the loop wasn’t the only thing Waverly lost that day. She wonders what Waverly was like, before the loops. Had she been this hard, always, or was it the endless grind of fighting the same battle over and over that had given her this unrelenting focus? Had she been a born warrior, carrying herself with that lethal certainty, or was that learned, too?

All Nicole really knows was that she’d been just another soldier, a barely trained private. All the propaganda focuses on that: how deadly Waverly had been with so little training. It’s always attributed to the suit, but now Nicole knows better.

Waverly’s eyes snap back to Nicole. The closed off look she’s perfected as the Full Metal Bitch is back, and it stuffs a lump down Nicole’s throat.

“Do you understand me, Haught? _You have to make sure you die_.”

Nicole just nods, but it seems to satisfy Waverly. She turns away to stride back to the centre of the fighting ring and raises her sword.

“Again.”

//

For the first time, Nicole rides through the shield in Waverly’s helicopter, trying to avoid Wynonna’s suspicious glare.

“You sure she’s got what you had?”

“Yes, Wynonna,” Waverly replies.

“I dunno. She looks pretty green to me.”

“Thanks,” Nicole says sarcastically.

“We’ll get her there.” Waverly’s voice is calm, confident, and Nicole grips the ceiling strap a little tighter. If Waverly believes in her, maybe she can do this.

Nicole lasts twenty-three seconds.

//

**Reset Forty-Seven**

Nicole starts to get into the rhythm of it, learns where Waverly is going to go and how. Every day, Waverly swings at her immediately after handing Nicole the sword, forcing her on the defensive right out of the gate. Up, left, down, up, jab, right. Next, if she steps over here, she’ll be able to parry Waverly’s overhand when she -

The flat of the blade knocks the legs out from under her.

On her back, wheezing, Nicole watches Waverly stand over her and tap her almost playfully on the chest with the tip of her sword. “Killed you, again.”

“But you - you were supposed to - last time you - “

“Remembering isn’t enough if you telegraph your moves. The Revenants aren’t little robots, reacting exactly the same way no matter what you do. The things you do still change what happens and you have to be ready for that change. Or you die.”

Waverly leans on her sword and watches Nicole struggle to get to her feet.

“Aren’t you going to help?” Nicole snaps, after she finally rises to her knees.

“No. I’m not going to be able to stop and pull you up tomorrow, am I? You need to be able to get to your feet. And if you do it that slowly, you’re dead.”

“I feel like a turtle. If it’s so easy, you do it.”

Waverly smiles, and lets herself fall back with a crash of metal. Nicole rushes to help her up, but suddenly Waverly’s boots are flying up towards her face, and then back down, as Waverly uses the momentum to flip herself back onto her feet.

“Wow.”

“Now it’s your turn.” Waverly shoves Nicole hard, so she falls back to the ground. “Again!”

//

Sixty-nine seconds.

//

**Reset Fifty-Five**

For the first time Nicole manages to beat Waverly She sends Waverly smashing back against the wall and then she’s over her with her blade ready. Waverly wipes the blood from her nose, and smiles.

“Good. You’re ready for the next stage.”

“Next...stage...” Nicole doesn’t think the gleam in Waverly’s eyes is going to lead to anything good.

She’s right. Now, Waverly _and_ Wynonna attack her at the same time.

The simulated bullets Wynonna fires hurt like a mule kick and cover her in ugly bruises. She tries to fire back, but Wynonna darts around the place like a jackrabbit, and every time Nicole tries to aim at her, Waverly’s there, sword flashing.

“Again!”

//

Ten seconds. Nicole blames it on the bruising; enough swelling will slow anyone down.

//

**Reset Sixty-One**

“Good.”

The word doesn’t describe how Nicole feels. She might have finally managed to best both Wynonna and Waverly, but it feels like every square inch has been hit by a semi. Twice.

“Look, this is fine for training, but how am I supposed to actually fight with this thing?” Nicole waves the practice sword in disgust.

“I was hoping you’d ask about that.”

//

The g-wagen rattles even on the smooth tarmac of the runway, wind whistling through the cracks at the edges of the doors, where the rubber’s worn thin. 

Waverly stops the g-wagen in the middle of the airstrip, cuts the engine, and hops out without a word. At first Nicole doesn’t follow. She just watches Waverly walk

Eventually her curiosity gets the better of her, and she slips out to stand next to Waverly.

“I like it out here.”

Nicole looks around. “In the middle of an airstrip? Seems pretty bleak to me.”

“It’s the only place here that’s open enough to really see sky.” Waverly gestures up. “I always loved the blue of the sky.”

“Then why is your jacket red?”

“It stands out better. Reminds me why I’m here.”

There’s a long pause in which they both stare at the sky, as if it will have the answers. Nicole searches, but she can’t think of a reason, an actual logical reason, why. Why she’s there, why she’s stuck in the loop, why the Revenants came, why any of it. 

“That sounds nice,” Nicole says eventually.

“The red? I always hated red.”

“The open sky. It sounds like freedom.”

//

“Jeremy? Jeremy!”

Waverly leads Nicole past fighting suits in various states of disrepair, hanging like slabs of meat.

“He makes my swords. Made my very first sword. Now he’s going to make you one, too.”

Nicole runs her fingers across the metal on Jeremy’s workbench. “Does it have to be a sword?”

“What else would it be?”

“An axe. I’d like an axe.”

//

Two minutes, fifteen seconds.

//

**Reset Seventy-Three**

It’s become routine by now.

Dodging Wynonna. Telling Waverly. Holding up fingers for Rosita. Handing over specs to Jeremy.

Nicole goes through the whole routine on autopilot, vaguely registering but not really listening. None of it ever changes, anyway.

It’s gotten so bad, Waverly calls a halt to their training.

“Look at me. Look at me, Haught!” Nicole finally lifts her head. “I know it feels impossible, but you can do this. _We_ can do this. You keep coming here, and I’ll train you.”

“You already have.”

“Then why don’t you show me what you’ve got?”

Waverly wants to see what Nicole’s got, anyway, so they move into a training session that actually becomes more about Waverly learning to work with someone who fights like she does, close to as well as she does.

“Now we can start focusing on tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes. You’ve been memorising the battlefield? Looking for a way through?”

“Of course.”

“Show me.”

//

Six minutes, 42 seconds.

//

**Reset Ninety-One**

“After we step out of the helicopter, the next Revenants are at your two o’clock, three hundred metres away, and we’ve got to run at them or else the explosion will knock us down. You have to be ready to take down the one on the right as soon as we get there. I’ll handle the other two. I’ll signal you when it’s time to move again, to take cover here.”

Nicole points at a crater in the small-scale model she and Jeremy had built of the field complete with little matchstick buildings, and a few toy cars that don’t quite match the scale. She’s given Waverly this briefing so many times it flows almost without thought. This time her confidence has taken her a step closer than usual and, as Waverly leans over to get a closer look, her bare arm brushes against the sleeve of Nicole’s uniform.

Silence fills the room with an odd feeling that’s vaguely oppressive and comforting all at the same time, as if Nicole had wrapped her head in a thick woolen blanket. She finds herself staring at that arm. Fixed on it.

Months of training in the fighting suits have hardened Waverly’s yoga-toned body into thick cords.

The play of those muscles moving over each other as Waverly traces their route up the field fascinates Nicole. The coiled, controlled power so close underneath the surprising soft-looking skin is so intrinsically Waverly. Just like that look of intense concentration, on a face that can fill with light in a way that could make even hard-nosed Lieutenant Dolls break into a grin. Shame it happens so rarely.

“Have I got something on my face?”

Nicole’s eyes snap up from Waverly’s lips to her eyes. _Damn. Caught._ “No, no. No.”

Embarrassment at being caught staring might flush her skin, but Nicole mostly feels hope. She feels that they have a chance. That the two of them, together, can win this fight.

//

Twenty-one minutes, five seconds.

//

**Reset Ninety-Eight**

“No. No training this time. Just...can we go somewhere? Somewhere no one will disturb us?”

Nicole might bunk in a stuffy room with the rest of her platoon, but the Angel of Verdun gets her own suite. For the first few minutes Nicole just wanders around looking at the space. It’s the first new thing she’s seen in a long time, and it’s not what she expected. Books fill a small shelf, and spill over onto the desk next to it. Waverly’s pillows have patterned cases, instead of the plain white of the issued ones, and several extra fuzzy blankets are piled on her bed. It’s... soft, and almost homey. Not the room of a warrior.

Waverly waits near the door, letting her explore uninterrupted until Nicole’s ready to talk.

“The year before everything went to shit I spent a winter working in Whistler,” Nicole says eventually. “Pretty much everyone I knew did. Spent most of the time picking tiny kids up off their butts, so wrapped up in snowsuits you could only tell them apart by colour. But on days off we had a pass that got us anywhere. There was one day, we skinned up by headlamp in the near dark, and watched the sun rise over the mountains. Spent the whole day on that mountain, and then drank half the night. Now why couldn’t I get to relive that day over and over?”

“Nicole, it’s okay.” Waverly lays her hand on Nicole’s to comfort her, but she pulls away roughly.

“No, it’s not. You don’t _know_.”

“Actually, I’m the only other person who _does_ know.”

Nicole turns, and immediately realises she’s made a mistake.

A mistake, because now she’s staring into Waverly’s open gaze, and she can see an echo of the same weariness that she’s feeling, buried deep inside Waverly. All the times they’ve gone round and round this loop and Waverly’s never shared more than the briefest of details from her own groundhog day. The big brushstrokes, the key tactical information, but nothing, Nicole realises now, that really matters. Nicole knows how Waverly developed her weapon, how she figured out the Revenant hierarchy, but nothing personal. Waverly never talks about the pain of the loops, about the deaths, about the long tedium, as if refusing to touch anything close to personal will keep it buried, stop it from following her.

“Tell me about Verdun?”

So, Waverly does. She tells Nicole about not being able to get through the Revenant lines without watching one of her sisters die. Hundreds of times. Sometimes Wynonna. Sometimes Willa. Sometimes both.

The day she lost the power, she’d made a choice to step right and save Wynonna, and they’d won the battle but lost Willa, and she can never shake the horrible knowledge that she chose to let her sister die.

“I’ve never told anyone any of this.” Waverly turns up sharply towards Nicole, a bitter thought occurring to her. “Have I?”

Nicole shakes her head. “We’ve never had this conversation before.”

Waverly moves away, to the window, lost in her own thoughts, and Nicole searches for a way to bring her back.  
  
“What would your day be?” Waverly turns, gives Nicole a puzzled look. “If you could have picked the day for your loop. What day would it be?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“I must have been really small. Five, or six. My mum took us - me, Willa and Wynonna - to the Montreal Botanical Garden. We just spent the day walking around, looking at all the plants and just... being. Being a family. No one was angry, or upset. And I know it sounds kind of boring, but it was just a nice day. That’s a day worth fighting for, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” Nicole says, dropping her eyes from Waverly’s hopeful gaze to stare at her hands. “Y’know, I thought I could save the world. But maybe... maybe I can’t. Maybe I’m just trapped, and I’m _exhausted_.”

Nicole doesn’t quite believe her own senses when she feels Waverly’s hand slide under her chin and lifts Nicole’s head up so their eyes meet again.

Waverly lays her hand gently in the centre of Nicole’s chest, fingers light where the tips touch her throat. Nicole’s breaths are shaky, and Waverly smiles at the uneven fluttering under her hand.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Nicole can’t respond to that. At least, not with words. Her fingers bunch in the cotton of Waverly’s t-shirt and she lunges for Waverly’s mouth.

Yet, what Nicole felt the most was not a lightning strike, or sparks of irresistible passion, but a sense of deep comfort. There was an ease about being close to Waverly, a gentle flow of deep desire that wrapped about them both. She might start out desperate, clinging to Waverly like she’s the last real thing left in world, but as they discard their clothes randomly about the room Nicole can feel something flow out of Waverly and into her. Where their bare skin touches, she can feel the panic seeping out. Everything she’s been keeping pent up escapes, pin prick holes out of a balloon full of air, and she comes to rest against Waverly.

When Waverly lays her hands on Nicole, Nicole knows that she really doesn’t care about the battle, or the other soldiers outside, or the Revenants waiting on the other side of the river.

All she cares about is this. All she wants is to stay right where she is, just like this, and loose herself in Waverly.

So she does.

//

When Nicole wakes up she’s out from under the covers and on her feet, ready for a fight, before her brain registers why. She’s not in her bunk.

Instead of Shaprio’s cocky grin, she sees Waverly smiling down at her. “Morning, sleepy head. You slept well.”

“Feels like it’s been years since I’ve had such a good sleep.”

It’s not only Nicole who feels different this morning: she thinks she’s never seen Waverly so relaxed.

“You can wait in bed if you want. I’m just brewing up some coffee.”

Nicole sniffs the air, and then sucks in a deep breath. “Is that...”

Waverly nods. “Real coffee. Fresh ground, from beans and everything. There are some perks to being me.” She sits on the bed, and reaches for a strand of Nicole’s hair to play with. “You know, you have gorgeous hair.”

“I thought you hated the colour red?”

“Red like blood, or like the sunset. Your red... it’s softer. Like fresh fallen leaves in fall. Or...

The door starts to swing open, cutting off Waverly’s next words and sending her into a tense crouch.

“Waverly! You better be in there ‘cause if you – oh my god.” Wynonna slaps her hand over her eyes. “We got a war to fight. Put some pants on.”

//

Twenty-four minutes sees Waverly and Nicole beyond the main line of the Revenants. Despite Waverly’s protests that they need to push on, Nicole drags them into a house and pushes Waverly into a chair. Waverly might be trying to act like she's not injured, but Nicole knows better. It’s the same injury as the last time, and the time before.

"Please. Just show me where it hurts."

Waverly chuckles. "How long have you got?"

Nicole rolls her eyes. Time isn’t her problem.

As soon as Nicole starts packing up the first aid kit, Waverly pulls her shirt back on in a workmanlike fashion. “So, what next?”

Nicole’s teeth grind. Every loop, Waverly seems to be able to see nothing but the fight. Nothing but the end goal, and driving towards it as fast as she can. Every time the day starts back up Waverly is fresh and full of drive, while Nicole just gets more and more tired.

For once, maybe they could just rest. Just this one day. It’s not as if it’s going to make any difference, anyway. When she loops back around, everything would be exactly the same as if they kept on pushing.

Nicole’s been silent for too long, and Waverly is watching her with an intent expression. “You do know what happens next, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Nicole can’t lie, especially not to Waverly. But she can’t do this, not again. “But - maybe we should split up, with your injury and all. You’ll be safe here. I can go on, find the queen, and come back for you after.”

Waverly refuses. “I’m a soldier. I’m not going to sit out a fight.”

“You haven’t! You got this far, but now you’re hurt, and -“

“What aren’t you telling me?”

_Fuck_.

“You die.” It’s the first time Nicole’s said the words, but she’s seen it happen half a hundred times. “I can’t save you. No matter what I do from this point forward, you die, and if I go on and destroy the queen, you’ll stay dead.”

“Why does it matter what happens to me?”

Nicole can’t say it, she can never get the words out of her throat, but she knows the truth is bursting straight from her heart, shining out of her eyes and she can’t stop it. _I love you_ , but she just can’t seem to say it.

Waverly stares back at her, her face instinctively forming that impassive mask that Nicole has learned Waverly’s feeling something she doesn’t want to share. Waverly doesn’t want love. She doesn’t want Nicole’s undying declarations, the dedication to get her through to the end of the day alive so they can see the sunrise of tomorrow, together.

All she wants is an end to this war, whatever the cost.

Waverly needs a soldier, and Nicole knows that’s not her.

//

**Reset Ninety-Nine**

“Yes? What do you want? How did you get in here?”

Each of them follow different gods. Nedley, his duty. Wynonna, her loyalty to her family, to Waverly, the only part of her family left standing. Waverly to the cause, the belief that they could win.

Prayers that made them believe, but left them broken on the floor. An altar that they knelt before only to have it fall, to fail, over and over again.

Every time, they die.

And then, so does Nicole.

And Waverly forgets.

She looks at Nicole with stranger’s eyes, and Nicole can’t. She just can’t. She needs to get off the base, to see people that aren’t in uniform, to pretend like tomorrow isn’t coming. From her point of view, it’s been over three months since she last signed a leave pass.

Maybe she can get extra danger pay if she ever gets out of the loop.

As she pushes the door of the bar open, Nicole tells herself she’ll be back before the morning attack. Just a little whisky to deaden the pain.

At least, it would have if the only thing in her drink had been whiskey.

Nicole doesn’t know who laced her drink, or even if the group that jumps her outside the bar knew she was drugged. She doesn’t really know anything until she wakes up the next morning, face down in wet grass.

Clutching her head, Nicole slowly finds her feet and peers at the blurry world around her. It’s way too light outside and she has no idea where she is.

Find the high ground. If she gets high enough, maybe she can see what’s happened.

Then the screams start.

Nicole runs towards the screams, towards the nearest edge, despite being unarmed and still pretty woozy, and when she gets there, she sees how they did it. They handed the Revenants the keys to their fortress: the boat-like vehicles she and the other troops had used to cross the line. The Revenants had overrun the soldiers and used the abandoned tech to get themselves inside the safe zone, and now there is nowhere safe.

//

**Reset One Hundred**

The next time she wakes up, Nicole just leaves. Walks away from Shapiro, from Nedley, from everything.

She can’t stand the thought of seeing Waverly at the end of the run. Of seeing her at the briefing. Of seeing her tomorrow, and knowing that nothing she can do will see Waverly through that day.

There’s no reason to wait for the attack.

Nicole steals a sword from Waverly’s armoury and just goes straight through to the place Rosita thought the queen should be. She’s expecting more protection. More resistance. The Revenants are crowded, packing in the tunnels, but Nicole just plows through them, heading deeper and deeper until... nothing.

This is the centre of the nest. The queen should be here. There’s a large open space ahead of Nicole, but no new Revenants in the swarm.

There is no queen.

//

When Nicole wakes up, she knows that they’ve been going about this all wrong. It’s not just about her, or even Waverly. There’s not an easy fix, a single big bad they can take out. There’s not one magic golden wrench that’s going to break the enemy.

They’ve got to win the battle.

**Author's Note:**

> The characters (other than Doc) are in the Canadian Army, so if you are US/UK/other military, some things might be different from what you're used to. I am very open to questions, comments, or any concerns you may have. If you wish to reach out privately, I can be reached as flyingfanatic on Tumblr or aflyingfanatic on Twitter


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